January 12, 2011

The Final

On Friday the 10th December 3rd year product design students from Gray’s School of Art, Dundee University and Edinburgh College of Art gathered in the impressive surroundings of the Sculpture Court at Edinburgh College of Art to participate in the judging session of the NCR | Scottish Student Design Competition. In this sixth year of the competition NCR was supported and assisted by Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and V&A at Dundee.

The competition launched in Aberdeen on the 15th October with introductory presentations by Caroline Parkinson, Creative Scotland, Paul Harris, Head of Gray’s School of Art and Charlie Rohan, NCR. The brief – ‘Experience a new world of interaction’ – Explore what this could mean to you and your generation in the next 2 years. What is the new world of self-service interaction? Research and understand what people want their experience to be in relation to a particular area of self-service. Demonstrate how the consumers experience is facilitated through a concept design. The initial solutions should be able to be brought to market in a 2 year time frame.

45 students participated, each gave a two minutes long pitch ‘Dragon’s Den’ style to the judges (Caroline Parkinson [Creative Scotland], Joyce Matthew [Scottish Enterprise], Georgina Follet [V&A at Dundee], Steven Birnie and Charlie Rohan [both NCR] and their peers. A shortlist was then created and 8 asked back to give a more detailed presentation.

Charlie Rohan made the point that this type of cooperation between advocates of design and innovation across government bodies; the museum sector; academia and industry was a unique model and provided the students with a challenging project and insight into a commercially driven design process. Though our continued support of this program NCR has gained insight and access to some of the best emerging design talent in Scotland.